Back to School
by Tempest Rose
Summary: When a serial sadist abducts teenaged girls from a high school in Long Beach, California, two agents find themselves posing as students in order to find and stop the unsub responsible. Rating for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Tempest Rose: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters. This is my first Criminal Minds fic so please be gentle. Constructive criticism is welcome while flames will be used for cooking burgers if I get hungry. Will and Henry do not exist in this story, you can make up your own reasons for where Will vanished. The story is set just after Paradise in season 4. Now that that's out of the way, on with the story!**

Reid was grumbling under his breath as he trudged up the stairs and into the conference room. At least he wasn't the only one who didn't seem happy. Behind him, Morgan was griping about how his evening had been ruined yet again by a case, while Emily and JJ shared a commiserating glance behind the bald man's back. Even the normally perky Penelope Garcia had a scowl on her face, very upset that her date with Kevin had been ruined. As the disgruntled agents sulked into the room, they each took a second to glare at the three men standing in front of the screen on the wall. Reid had made a beeline for the coffee maker and was just sitting down when his brain decided to kick itself into gear. 'Three people? What? Ok, I see Hotch. Rossi is next to him, and the third is-' "Gideon? The hell are you doing here?"

Six pairs of eyes turned to the resident genius as the aforementioned man dropped his gaze. Gideon should have expected such a reaction from his former protégé. Flicking his gaze to the young man, he grinned slightly at the sight of the doctor attempting to hide behind his cup of sugar with a splash of coffee.

"I'm here to help out on a case. We have a serial sadist in Long Beach."

JJ leaned forward in her seat, her blue eyes looking rather perplexed. "Why haven't I heard about this? No offence Hotch, but normally I'm the one presenting cases."

The ever-stoic unit chief gave the media liaison a half-hearted shrug. "I got this first because we need to send some agents in undercover." Turning his back to his team Aaron Hotchner grimaced as he explained the next part. "Two of you will be posing as students at Wilson Classical High School. All nine victims were students there, and so far it's our only connection."

Hotch turned back to the agents seated at the round table expecting to hear protests. Instead he saw that JJ had put her head on the table in defeat, and Reid was giving Gideon a glare that could kill a small animal. Setting down the mug in his hand, the young profiler pointed a single bony finger at his former mentor. "If you even start to mention Parker Dunley as justification for why I'm going to be a high school student again, I will PERSONALLY hack the security footage of your conversation with that artist friend of Lila's. And there is audio on that recording Gideon."

The retired profiler paled slightly, trying to come up with an appropriate retort. Thankfully, Derek Morgan spared him the trouble of defusing the young genius. "Damn Pretty Boy, what's gotten into you? I've never seen you get this mad at anyone, let alone Gideon."

With a glare pointed briefly at his fellow profiler, Reid all but growled his response. "I'm under caffeinated and over tired. Besides, I am well aware of how young I look. It's pretty obvious that I'm going to be one of the students; I just need to adjust my wardrobe to get more appropriate clothes. So am I going to be making up stories to explain absentee parents or what?"

JJ perked up just a bit in response to Reid's question. She had no doubt about being the other undercover student on this; after all, she got carded any time she went to a bar. The blonde was not looking forward to having to act like a teenager, but she had a job to do and she would do it. 'Besides,' JJ reasoned mentally, 'maybe this will be just the chance I need to get Spence to see me as more than a friend. All those high school girls will be fawning all over him, and he'll need a way to make them stop. How better to do that than to have a girlfriend already?'

Little did JJ know that a rather conniving smirk had begun to play across her face. In fact, she was only snapped out of her internal musings when Garcia asked her a question. "JJ honey, why are you looking like the cat who seduced the canary?" JJ's cheeks turned a rather fetching hue of scarlet as her eyes dropped to the table. Just on the edge of the media liaison's field of vision, Reid was staring at her with a cocked eyebrow as her nursed his second- or was it third- cup of liquid energy.

Thankfully, David Rossi spared JJ any further embarrassment by finally answering Reid's question. "Jason and I will be joining you two in the field. The story is that the two of you are best friends from Vegas; Jennifer will be my niece who has recently been orphaned, while Spencer is the son of the school's new psychology teacher Jason Gideon. Jen and I will be moving to Long Beach under the guise that I was already planning on moving and let my distraught niece choose where home would be."

With his typical playboy smirk firmly in place, Derek Morgan leaned back in his chair as he addressed the older man. "So you're gonna be the laid-back uncle I take it? Guess we know where the parties will be at then." Even the stone-faced Aaron Hotchner seemed to be amused by such a prospect. Throughout the whole of the meeting thus far, Emily Prentiss had been as silent as a monk. She was damn glad that she didn't have to be a part of the undercover team for such a case. Emily was very excited at the prospect of taking her two friends shopping for teen clothes though. However, she realized something very important. "Here's a thought for you; if Reid and JJ are supposed to be from Vegas, wouldn't it make sense to get their new wardrobes in Vegas? That way they'll have things from Vegas that are authentic and not labeled that way just for show."

Tilting his head to the side ever so slightly, Gideon rubbed his hands together in that oh-so-typical fashion of his as he considered the brunette's words. Admittedly, she had a point; and it would be much more convincing if the four of them could really make it look like they were moving in to Long Beach from Vegas. Looking to Hotch for approval, Gideon waited patiently for the unit chief to make the decision. Needless to say, he was quite surprised at the slight hint of mischief and mirth in the younger man's eyes.

"Don't worry Emily, that was already the plan. We have six weeks until school starts, and since our unsub only takes his victims while school is in session we'll have some time. We'll have two weeks in Las Vegas to prepare for this case. Reid, since we don't know how long you'll be undercover, you are more than welcome to visit your mother while we're there. You and JJ should pack only enough for a day or two since you'll be replacing everything. If you have anything else you want to bring for personal reasons, just make sure it can't blow your cover. Garcia, you'll be joining us in Vegas for two weeks to do final details on backgrounds. Wheels up in one hour everyone."

And with that statement, the agents went their own ways in preparation of the coming trip.


	2. Chapter 2

**TR: Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers! You've inspired me to work on this when I should have been doing homework. I promise to try and get three done ASAP but between jury duty coming up and all the homework due before midterms, don't hold it against me if it's a bit slow please! Now on with the story!**

Derek Morgan had been prepared to see Reid show up on the jet with a box or three of books. He wouldn't have even been surprised to see the genius appear with every episode of Star Trek on DVD instead. But what no one on the jet was expecting to see is what they actually got. Spencer Reid ducked through the door with a lightly packed messenger bag, a box full of sheet music for currently popular songs, and two soft guitar cases strapped together and slung over one shoulder. JJ, who had arrived just before Reid, stared at the lanky man with a look of incredulity and just a hint of lust. If his possessions weren't surprising enough, Reid's clothing certainly was. Once again he wore his favorite pair of Converse, but to the shock of all he wore a pair of faded jeans with a hole over his right knee. The typical sweater and tie were gone, and the dress shirt Spencer wore was left unbuttoned over a simple white tee.

Garcia was the last to board, and when she got a good look at the youngest member of the team, she couldn't help but to gasp in awe at his appearance. "Holy hand grenades! Reid, when did you become a model and why was I not informed? You might need to take Derek along just to fend off the girls who are gonna want to jump you!"

Feeling suddenly very embarrassed, Reid scrambled for a new subject. Grasping at straws mentally, he noticed something hiding under JJ's seat. From what he could tell, it was a rather old bag of some kind. Based on what little Reid could see of it, the bag was brown leather and she was trying very hard to deflect attention away from it. Stowing his guitars gently and plopping down on the couch across from her, Reid launched his counter attack. "So JJ, I've never seen that bag before. What's in it?"

Jumping slightly at the question, JJ cursed inwardly. Reid's plot to divert everyone's attention away from himself had worked flawlessly. Seven sets of eyes swiveled to focus on the petite blonde as she scrambled to come up with an answer. 'I'd rather be in a room full of pissed off reporters than a plane with six profilers.' "Oh it's nothing, just a few things to take with me. There's really nothing special." 'Damn, damn, damn. There is no way that they're going to leave this alone.' JJ was mentally berating herself. What was it that Penelope had said to Morgan before her disastrous date with Battle? Ah yes, she had said that she hated profilers. Now that was something JJ could agree with wholeheartedly.

"JJ, it's ok. Whatever you have in there is fine, we aren't going to laugh or tease you. But we do need to see it to make sure it can't compromise your cover. If it makes you feel any better, we'll be checking what Reid brought along too."

If JJ wasn't so completely straight, she would have kissed Emily right then. With a small sigh, JJ grabbed the bag from under her seat and set it on her lap. Gently pulling out four jewelry boxes, she opened each one and set them so her team could see the contents. One box held a simple gold cross on a chain, while another had a pink quartz heart that was also set in gold. The third had a pair of pearl earrings, and the fourth held glittering diamond studs inside. Taking a deep breath, JJ reached into the bag one more time to pull out what could be considered her most prized possession in the entire world. With great care she extracted the final item and placed it on the small table with the jewelry boxes. She had just revealed her biggest weakness to the people that she considered family.

"Aw sweetie, he's adorable! Where did you get him?" Garcia squealed with glee. JJ couldn't help but to blush daintily. The stuffed monkey on the table had been with her through the best and worst points in her life.

"I got Ling-Ling when I was five for Christmas. Since my uncle got him while on a business trip in China, I figured I should give him a Chinese sounding name. He's been with me through everything since then." By now JJ could feel her cheeks burning as she ducked her head, hiding behind a blonde curtain. Here she was almost thirty years old and she was bringing a children's toy along on a case. To her surprise it wasn't Emily or Penelope that spoke up to reassure her, it was Derek.

"JJ, you've got nothing to be embarrassed about. Hell, if I didn't have a little sister I'd probably still have the bear I got when I was a baby. But God knows Desiree just couldn't be satisfied with her own toys so she took mine."

Emily chuckled lightly at that. "At least you know where yours is. The bear I used to have got lost during a move when I was younger."

It seemed that JJ's revelation was leading to a group revelation, and she was completely ok with that. Now that JJ, Emily, and Derek had all shared their stories, all eyes shifter to the tech goddess of the team.

"What? You've all seen my office; does it really surprise you that I have a shelf of toys from my childhood at home? Honestly guys, you should have expected that. What about you boss man?" One thing that was certain, Garcia had balls. No one else had the guts to turn this topic onto the workaholic. To their surprise however, Hotch actually smiled a bit before responding.

"I had a stuffed dinosaur that I passed on to Jack when he was born. Toys are meant to be played with, and now he has something of me with him all the time." Everyone on the team smiled at that logic. They all knew how much Hotch missed his son, so the fact that he gave the little boy such a prized possession warmed their hearts.

Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw Reid fidget on the couch. "What about you kid? You must have had some sort of toys that you played with growing up."

Reid bit his lip for a moment before answering his best friend. "I did once. My father gave me a stuffed horse when I was very little, and I kept him close for the longest time."

"What happened to it?" Emily sounded quite curious.

Reid sat up and looked down at his shoes, shoulders drooping with the weight of a soul weary sigh. "My senior year of high school I came home to find my mom burning a bonfire in the back yard. She was burning all the porcelain dolls she had from when she was a little girl and she had thrown my horse on the fire too. Mom had been in the middle of one of her episodes, and the voices convinced her that the dolls and my horse were demons that were going to kill us in our sleep."

Reid knew no one would know what to say after that, so he pulled the box of sheet music over and opened it. Nudging the box toward the rest of the team, Reid stood and pulled his guitars out from their storage place. Setting the conjoined cases on the floor and detaching them from each other, he couldn't hide his smirk at the sound of his teammates shock at the boxes contents. He knew they thought he listened to nothing but classical music, so it was nice to prove them wrong. Reid's smirk grew to a grin as he looked up and saw Morgan and Garcia huddled over the box as they flipped through the folders inside.

"Reid, man, where did you get all these? I didn't even know you listened to Fall Out Boy or Blink 182. What other secrets are you hiding?"

"Morgan, having an IQ of 187 does not preclude good taste in music. Besides, how do you expect me to play guitar without songs?" Reid leaned back down to unzip the guitar cases, exasperation heavy in his voice. Flipping the lids off of each case, he picked up his electric guitar. Carefully tuning the purple fender, Reid pushed the empty case toward Rossi as Gideon reached for the acoustic.

"Reid?" Garcia inquired, "Do you have a group that you play with? Because all of these songs have the lyrics included, and there are some in here that I pretty sure you'd need someone else to sing."

With a chuckle, Reid responded. "You're right, I can't sing a few of those songs. I'm hoping to use these as a way to blend in with the other student, and maybe I'll find a singer who can do those ones. I do love those songs though."

Not having seen what Garcia had been taking about, Hotch asked the youngest member of the team why he couldn't sing those pieces that had been mentioned. The genius's reply was quite succinct. "My reproductive organs dangle. Without getting kicked hard enough to induce vomiting, I can't hit some of those notes. I might have great range, but there is still a big difference between the highest note a tenor can hit and how high a soprano can go."

Setting his precious fender back into its case, Reid didn't even bother trying to restrain the massive grin on his face as he heard the two eldest profilers choke on their coffees at his response. Closing the guitar cases and reattaching them to each other, he stowed the instruments and sheet music out of the way and grabbed the stack of case files that had been left unattended on one of the empty seats. Sitting back down on the couch after passing the files out, Reid looked to Gideon and spoke. "Maybe we should go over the case file before we land. After all, it's going to be a busy two weeks in Vegas, isn't it 'Dad'?"

**Woohoo! I love writing Reid and Garcia, they are so much fun. Next time we really will get into the heart of the case, I promise.**


	3. Chapter 3

**TR: Once again, if you recognize it I don't own it. To all of my wonderful reviewers, I love you all and yet I'm annoyed. You all make me want to keep working on this story when I have two other stories to write and lots of homework to do. Now I won't be doing this all the time but I do want to send a shout out to one of my reviewers, The wife of Dr. Spencer Reid. I am going to do everything in my power to avoid writing a Gary-sue here. I'm trying to model my portrayal of the adorable genius on how Starofoberon wrote him in her stories Home Demonstration and Structure of His Spontaneity. I highly recommend those stories. I apologize for that error. That said, on with the story!**

Flipping the folder open and sitting up just a little bit straighter in her chair, JJ slipped into work mode and got down to business. "So far we have nine victims. Clarissa Willows, our first victim, was taken four years ago. Family and friends described her as very quiet and shy to an extreme. She was found less than a month later. The second victim was Serena Noxon; she was missing for almost two months before being found less than one mile from where Clarissa Willows was discovered. There was a full two months between discovery times. No defensive wounds were found on Clarissa, but there were a few on Serena."

Frowning thoughtfully, Reid noted a trend. "There seems to be a correlation between the number of defensive wounds, the severity of the torture, and the length of time that the girls were missing. Based on the time in between abductions, we can assume that the unsub puts all of his focus on just one victim at a time."

"But the time span between the disposal of one victim and the abduction of the next indicates a severe lack of remorse. Also, notice what the family and friends said about the personalities of the victims. Clarissa was described as being painfully shy, while the most recent victim, Elizabeth Keyes, was very outgoing and into several sports." Emily stated clinical detachment evident in her voice.

Gideon had removed his glasses and was chewing on the earpiece as he contemplated the information in the file before him. "We're dealing with a sexual sadist here. So far all of the victims show signs of sexual assault and the use of spermicide. That tells us that he isn't impotent. Victims seven and eight, Samantha Arner and Elaina Wong, also showed signs of sodomy. Emily noticed the personality differences in the victims, and look at the file you can see an escalation of personality types. He starts with the shy types who won't fight back much if at all; then as his confidence builds, he moves up to stronger and tougher girls who will fight with everything they have."

David Rossi was leaning forward in his seat, looking to all the world like a very contemplative bulldog. "What if you're wrong Jason? You say you don't think the unsub is impotent based on the presence of spermicide, but you could be wrong. For all we know the unsub put a condom on just about anything shaped like a phallus and used that to perform the sexual assault. By that logic the unsub our unsub could be a woman."

For a moment no one moved, they hadn't considered that possibility. Morgan rubbed his chin absently as he began to think out loud. "There is a good chance that our unsub is a woman if you take that into consideration. But judging by the level of violence shown, I really think we're still looking for a man. Some of these girls are tall or a little on the bigger side of things, not many women are going to be strong enough to control all of these girls. The only thing I can think of that would point back to a female unsub is victimology. Victims three and nine, Mariah North and Elizabeth Keyes are black, Samantha Arner and Clarissa Willows are both blondes but with completely different body types. Serena Noxon and Cassandra Mercer are Latinas, Amelia Summers is a red head and Leah Carter is a brunette."

At that moment, Hotch's phone buzzed. He had gotten a text message from the LEOs in Long Beach. "Elizabeth Keyes was just found an hour ago and we already have a report of another girl being abducted. Paula Wells is of Asian descent, just like Elaina Wong. She is a cheerleader, a gymnast, and a martial artist as well. We now have ten victims from this man, he must be stopped."

Garcia chewed her lip as she sat with her eyes closed. She wasn't used to knowing about the horrors the victims were subjected to. It was almost impossible to think of poor Paula Wells, knowing what she was going to be subjected to. That poor girl would be beaten, stabbed, burned, raped, starved, you name it. Choking back a sob, Garcia jumped slightly when she felt a hand come to rest on her arm. Glancing up into the eyes of her junior G-man, she saw such a deep level of concern and empathy that Garcia couldn't help but be stunned. They all thought that he was just a walking computer, but the young doctor was much more intuitive than the team usually gave him credit for. Then again he was also a fair bit more manipulative too. On more than one occasion Garcia had seen Reid use puppy eyes that would put Jack Hotchner to shame in order to get his way. And each time he would be smirking in victory the second he thought no one was watching. 'If he ever gets tired of working for the FBI, that boy could make it big as an actor.'

After making sure that one of his surrogate sisters was going to be alright, Reid turned to Hotch with a scowl on his face. "I thought he only grabbed girls while school is in session, but we're in to week five of summer break. It seems strange that the unsub would break pattern like this without further evidence of evolution of his psychopathy."

As he was talking, Garcia had pulled up her laptop and accessed what information was available on Paula Wells so far. Reviewing the information quickly she looked up at the profilers and shared the details with them. "Alright my heroes, here's the scoop. Jon and Sakura Wells have been on a two month trip through Europe while Paula stayed behind to finish the school year. Her parents were under the impression that she was staying behind to take her finals and work, while her friends and boss thought that she was going off to join her parents on their trip."

"Ok, so then what proof do we have that she's been taken by the unsub? How do we know that she didn't just take off on a trip of her own?" Emily sounded skeptical, and for good reason. How could they prove that Paula was the tenth victim on this case and not just an average teen displaying a rebellious streak?

"Oh god!" Garcia choked out, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. Morgan's focus flew to the bubbly blonde almost immediately.

"What's wrong Mama? What did you find?" By now everyone on the jet had turned to look at the computer guru.

Flashing everyone a watery smile, Garcia turned back to her screen. "Well my mocha muffin, this is one seriously sick puppy. They know that he grabbed Paula Wells because he… he nailed a photo of her to the back of Elizabeth Keyes' head. In the photo, Paula already looks like she's been beaten pretty badly. Preliminary report from the coroner's office suggests that that was the cause of death."

Rossi frowned thoughtfully, the unsub had broken pattern but not in the way they had thought. It seemed that he had probably grabbed Paula just before school got out for the year rather than waiting until fall to choose a new victim. Looking around the cabin, he noticed that both Emily and JJ looked like they were resisting the urge to vomit. Even the other men looked more than just a little green around the gills. Checking his watch, Rossi noticed that they would be landing in Vegas soon. He wasn't looking forward to the shopping portion of this trip one bit.


End file.
